"We're not going home anytime soon": Anger and determination in the streets of Paris

The Retailleau-Darmanin security tandem of the outgoing government portrayed a barbaric invasion to deter protests. A joyful and pacifist popular wave, propelled by social anger and the desire for change, swept across the country this Thursday, September 18.

A week after the "Block Everything" warm-up , more than a million people took part in the 588 actions (demonstrations, pickets or blockades) recorded by the Ministry of the Interior. The inter-union (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, FSU and Solidaires), which called for François Bayrou to swallow the austerity budget project left to his successor Sébastien Lecornu, managed to spark a mobilization resembling the 2023 social movement against the pension reform.

At the head of the Paris demonstration, union leaders unanimously called on the government to definitively abandon its austerity budget plan. "We demand that Sébastien Lecornu respond to this show of force. This budget must be buried. There will be no political stability if there is no social justice," thundered Sophie Binet of the CGT.

Laurent Escure of the UNSA (Union for a Popular Movement) agrees: " This mobilization is a warning, a final alert. The government must understand that people are fed up with this situation where it's always the same people who work and pay. We need more social justice and tax justice."

The indecency of this social injustice is widely shared among the crowd. Claire, in the CGT procession , struggles to accept the barely concealed alliance between the government and employers. "On the one hand, we give 211 billion euros to companies; on the other, we struggle to obtain subsidies to keep our association going," explains the employee of FLES de Paris, which offers training to people who are far from employment.

She attached the sum of her grievances to her bicycle basket. In the form of a receipt, the placard details the price the population is paying to finance the gifts to the bosses. " ^5th week of paid vacation: in danger. Civil servant salaries: frozen. Unemployment insurance: reduced," the note lists.

"It's a question of the acceptability of efforts. There is something indecent in the public debate about being moved by a pseudo-stigmatisation of the richest ," confirms Marylise Léon, general secretary of the CFDT . "There are only 2,000 of them, while we are talking about 10 million people in poverty."

In the demonstration heading towards Place de la Nation, a wide range of professions are represented under the multicolored flags of the inter-union. Civil servants, in particular, came out in large numbers to swell the ranks of the parade. It must be said that François Bayrou's budget proposal hardly spares them .

"We are promised a freeze on the index point, an increase in sick leave days and the non-replacement of one in three retirements. The State is organizing our understaffing and our inability to fulfill our missions," denounces Jean-Yann William, regional general secretary of the Unité-FO police union. According to the Ministry of the Civil Service, 11% of civil servants were on strike at 2 p.m., the majority in national education (45% in secondary education, according to the Snes-FSU).

However, the anger being expressed in the Parisian streets is far from confined to the budget presented by François Bayrou. The repeated attacks on the precarious and the workers are agglomerating into a mountain of discontent. Mustapha is so fed up that he struggles to put into clear words what he criticizes the executive for.

"I want Macron to get out like Bayrou , that's all," he sums up. In the Place de la Bastille, the Paris city garbage collector walks around with a large pink cushion on which has been sprayed "Macron, I hate you with all my heart ." "Everything is increasing, rents, groceries, but not our salaries," he continues.

At 60, the worker is only a few months away from retirement and fears that his future pension will be too low. After almost forty years of work, his salary does not exceed 1,800 euros .

Marielle also feels this general discontent. The after-school activity leader in Trappes, in the Yvelines department, doesn't usually go on strike. "It's hard to go without a day's pay," she explains. But her anger is such that she joined the demonstrations on September 10 and 18. "Wages, inflation, our pensions," the local government official begins to list.

Before suddenly blurting out: "Anyway, Macron takes care of the rich and that's it." In her daily life, the indifference of the public authorities towards workers translates into ever more hellish work rates . "We now have to take care of 12 children, compared to 8 when I started my career. Always asking us for more numbers makes us become abusive towards the children and it alienates the parents," the protester complains, wearing an orange CFDT vest.

At the front of the parade, the sound system of a Solidaires vehicle blares out a few words like an anthem, chorused by the demonstrators. "It is not at the Élysée, it is not at Matignon, that we will obtain satisfaction, it is in action," chants the procession. If this demonstration of September 18 sets the tone of social anger, the question of the follow-up to the movement is already being asked in the minds of the demonstrators.

With his cap screwed on his head and a SUD Industrie flag on his shoulder, Nicolas says: "I'm ready to go on a rolling strike if necessary. I'm not sure that days of leapfrogging will get us anywhere." The employee of the Suez Sevesc subsidiary and a staff representative is impatiently waiting to find out what the inter-union will decide. In the leading square, some have been cautious.

Others, like Sophie Binet, are adamant: the fight will not stop at Place de la Nation . "We are determined. We are not about to go home. Never has a president been so weak. Thanks to the mobilization we led two years ago, we are in a position of strength," she says.